Tribute to Koy Detmer

Ladies and gentlemen, the Koy Detmer Era with the Philadelphia Eagles is officially over. Honestly, Koy was never a deciding factor in the team's success or the team's short comings (although he is kind of short himself). To see Koy leave is not exactly sad, but you do have to appreciate his love of the game and determination and his ultimate pro-team mindset.

Koy Detmer may be the only quarterback in the league who devoted himself to his "holding game" more than his quarterback game. It is a popular belief that because Koy devoted himself to being an excellent holder for kicker David Akers, that he kept a position on the team the last few years. There may be better quarterbacks and backup quarterbacks, but Koy was devoted to knowing the Eagles' system and being the best holder in the league.

We will always remember Koy for his strange "whipping" after his early touchdown passes, and his ability to hold the ball for one of the top kickers in the NFL. We will also remember when McNabb went down with a leg injury and Koy stepped in the next game, a Monday Night in San Francisco, when Koy himself found himself being taken off the field on a cart and done for the year.

Good luck Koy in whatever you do next!

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ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Sports?

As much as I'm addicted to ESPN, I can't stand it most of the time. Once again Sportscenter did a feature on a mock playoff system to determine the NCAA Football champ for this coming season. They did this with the NFL and had two analysts critique each match up as if it were playoff weekend. I rank this stunt right up with the time they did mock GM press conferences for baseball in the off-season.

First of all, the NCAA does not even have a playoff system for division 1A. So to crown Ohio State the champ over USC is completely ludicrous!
Second of all, so many things will happen this year that nobody knows about. There will be the Cinderella BCS buster (Utah two years ago) as always, teams that fail to meet expectations (Tennessee last year) and teams that will exceed expectations (Penn State).

And the Little League World Series? Enough is enough! I have had it up to hear with all of this (Expletive deleted) little league on this (Expletive deleted) network! ESPN is exploiting these kids everyday and causing them to face way more pressure than 10, 11, 12, and 13 year olds should be facing. Whatever happened to the"fun" or the "love of the game"? Most of these kids already are gaining a sense of importance and could probably grow up with that attitude of arrogance. It is a disgrace.

On top of that, ESPN continues to provide some of the worst programming. This week featured the World Championships of Cup Stacking. You read that right; Cup Stacking. A competition where kids try to stack cups better than the others. Throw this in there with the domino competitions, poker, blackjack, darts etc. If I were at ESPN I'd be showing more Baseball Tonight (with Harold Reynolds) and NFL Prime Time, and video yearbooks etc. than made up and so-called sports.

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Notre Dame

The college football season is just around the corner and the pre-season hype has been underway for a while now. What team seems to be getting the most attention? It isn't the defending champ from Texas, nor the runner up (and possibly the best team the last few years) from USC. It isn't even the consensus preseason #1 Ohio State. You guessed it, Notre Dame.

Haven't we already heard this story before? New head coach comes in and turns around a program that seemed on the decline, and now all of a sudden they are national championship contenders? Sure, Charlie Weis did turn a soiled program around and give some shine back to the Dome, but didn't Ty Willingham do the same thing? How did that turn out?

The Irish went 9-3 last year, 3 wins better than their 6-6 season in 2004, ending the season in an embarrassing loss that was worst than the 34-20 score might indicate. In 2002, Willingham's first year, they went 10-3. Notre Dame fans will tell you that their schedule going into last season was a fierce one, and I'll give you that fact. Let's remember, going into the season they had to look at games at Pittsburgh and at Michigan to start things off, as well as trips to Washington, and matches with USC and Tennessee were looming. But a funny thing happens as the season goes along...

Pittsburgh finished the season 5-6.
Michigan struggled to a 7-4 year.
Michigan State was 5-6 (including a win over the Irish).
Washington was 2-9.
Purdue was 5-6.
BYU went 5-6.
Tennessee had a 5-6 season.
Syracuse went 1-10!
Stanford was 5-6.

Not including the Fiesta Bowl game against Ohio State, USC and Navy were the only teams on the schedule, in addition to Michigan, that had a winning record. USC defeated Notre Dame, and Navy hasn't beaten Notre Dame in a few decades. Of course the offense put up good numbers; they played against young or non existent defenses all year long. Give credit for actually winning the games Notre Dame should typically win, but let us not go overboard with the resurgence of Notre Dame and start proclaiming them a National Champion contender...yet.

You heard it here first folks, Notre Dame will start out the 2006 season 0-3 with losses at Georgia Tech, and home against Penn State and Michigan. You can take that Charlie Weis and Brady Quinn and National Championship talk down a few notches when that happens.

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